Orlando Magic look awful in 118-85 preseason loss to the Miami Heat

MIAMI — Orlando Magic players insist the sky isn’t falling, but even they have trouble finding positives from their preseason opener Sunday night against the Miami Heat.

The Magic looked disorganized, slow and worn out as they suffered a 118-85 throttling at the hands of the defending Eastern Conference champs. In the end, there was only one saving grace about what transpired:The loss will not count in the standings.

The Heat made 88.5 percent of their free-throw attempts. The Magic made 75.0 percent of theirs.

In a word: ugly.

“Like I told the guys when we got back in the locker room, there’s no need to panic,” center Dwight Howard said.

“There’s no need to get frustrated at what happened tonight. It’s the first game that we’ve played in seven months. So we’re going to be rusty. We’re gonna miss shots. We’re gonna make mistakes. But we have to stick together.”

Howard played poorly on the offensive end, scoring just five points on 2-of-9 shooting. Defensively, he fared a bit better, blocking three Heat shots and disrupting others.

Still, his trade request looms large over the franchise.

There were a few moments when he returned to the bench Sunday night looking frustrated, but that occurred at times last season, too.

“I just didn’t think he played real well,” Van Gundy said.

A reporter followed-up by asking if Howard looked “disengaged.”

“So if he has a bad game, now it’s going to be he’s ‘disengaged?’ That’s B.S. That’s after-the-fact stuff. No, he just didn’t play well. I don’t think he was disengaged at all. I thought his effort was good.”

The Magic actually trailed just 44-41 late in the second quarter when small forward Hedo Turkoglu drove to the basket, was undercut by Chris Bosh and crashed to the court with a loud thud. Turkoglu made the two ensuing foul shots, but he gingerly walked to the locker room and didn’t return. A team spokesman said Turkoglu had suffered a left-hip contusion.

Ryan Anderson and J.J. Redick led all scorers with 22 points apiece.

Howard's future, of course, is the most critical issue the Magic face.

He wants to go to either the New Jersey Nets, the Los Angeles Lakers or the Dallas Mavericks.

Players said Howard’s situation had no impact on the team’s performance against the Heat. Some of them pointed to their one-hour, 50-minute shootaround Sunday morning as a reason why they faded.

“It’s never fun to get your butt kicked,” Redick said.

But does the result matter?

It was, after all, just an exhibition.

“I think, quite honestly, this was good for us,” Van Gundy said. “Hopefully, it’s a wake-up call for everybody that you can’t go into practice in the week to come and keep doing things the way you’ve been doing them.”

If not, the Magic could face more embarrassments ahead — and when the games actually count.